I’ve been testing more notebooks – this time in Newcastle, UK. Newcastle has a similar size and feel to Stockholm, and so provides a good city to compare cultural responses to my exercises in error.
There are two type of notebooks – one has white lettering on the outside (marked), the other is plain (unmarked).
The first notebook (marked) I dropped, after 30 minutes, no one picked up. The second (unmarked) I dropped I had someone running up to me immediately to try to give it back. The third, two rough characters eyed it up but refrained from picking it up. Finally someone did pick it up. Now it’s waiting to see if they are curious enough to follow the clues…
Posted 11.03.10 | Add a comment
Tags: england, ethics, newcastle, notebooks
Roman Ondak, Good Feelings in Good Times. Frieze Art Fair, Lon 2003
So this is an idea I’ve been toying with since I started this research. And finally I’ve decided it is the route I should go down.
Context: Sweden
- the swedes are perhaps the best queuers in the world.
System: Queues
- they are spontaneous
- a symbol of order & civilised behaviour
- have their own rules
- culturally dependant
The natural ability for some nations, namely the Brits and the Swedes, to form queues when waiting is said to be a sign of civilisation and order. However some argue that it’s a mindless conditioned behaviour to follow the rules, and that those nations who don’t queue are more aware of what rules ought to be followed and what rules they know they really just have to go through the motions on. So if we can get people to question the queuing system, perhaps we can make them more aware of their inbuilt cultural behaviours and thus give them a space to re-evaluate their behaviour.
Fake queues are not uncommon. However many of these queues come from a top down, advertising-driven approach. Roman Ondak (above) is one artist who staged a static queue at the frieze art fair – a performance of a “moment of non-activity”. So what if a queue was formed from a more bottom-up approach? By the people, for the people.
Previously I’ve been trying to add errors to the queuing system to see how people behave when rules are broken, and things don’t work as expected. Now the next step is to subvert the queue itself. To take something that symbolises order and efficiency and process it through an absurd and playful lens. Basically a queue that leads to nowhere. Similar to Roman Ondak but I’m interested if people begin to join the queue, behaviours that arise from people waiting without needing to wait, and if passersby notice this error of social code, and question their perception and understanding of it.
The date for the staged queue will be around the end of March. I’m looking for a strange public space in stockholm to stage it and hope to bring some extra props – tents, korv grills, musicians, to elicit different experiences. Come!! All are welcome.
Posted 11.02.10 | Add a comment
Tags: project, prototype, queuing, Roman Ondak
This time its angry norweigan divers.
See on google streetview
Posted 11.02.10 | Add a comment
Tags: flash mob, google, maps, performance
It seems likely that the mechanism of the placebo response is through the production of what are called endogenous endorphins (naturally produced opiate substances) produced by the person being treated. Endorphins are released whenever we feel good, whatever the reason.
In pain, which I know best, approximately one third of patients will have a significant improvement in painful symptoms when treated with an inactive agent. This effect is increased if the doctor states that the new agent is superb. There is also a substantial placebo effect in depression and skin conditions, but much less effect in clear disease entities such as bronchitis and heart conditions.
- Stephen Tyrer, Psychiatrist and my Dad
That’s my Dad. He’s one of the leading researchers into placebo’s and their effect on depression. Alot of my Dad’s research looks into creating a believable experience for his patients as instrumental to the effect of the placebo. Queue the Experience Designer and Birgit Mager’s quote that “Experiences cannot really be designed, only the conditions that lead to experiences”. I’m taking the placebo approach on board full throttle now and aim to test it in eliciting a playful response in the face of frustration (caused by error). I’ve been finding some great examples of placebo’s used in a playful way to cope with fear, confusion and behavioural control.
more
Posted 9.02.10 | Add a comment
Tags: Birgit Mager, persuasive, placebo, science, Stephen Tyrer
Pigs acquire, through learning and evolution, expectations of their environment. Frustration of expectations results in motivation to change these conditions and is therefore adaptive. Initially, frustration should produce problem solving behaviour. If these responses are unsuccessful, other behaviours, reflecting general frustration should be elicited. Our purpose was to study both types of responses to frustration in grower pigs.
So these scientists took 18 pigs, and fasted them for 1, 2 or 3 hours every morning. On Monday and Tuesday the pigs got full feeders BUT on Wednesday and Friday they got 2 types of feeders – lidded with the lid bolted down (L) and un-lidded that was empty (O). Results showed that pigs in pairs showed an increase in sitting and playing and single pigs started to ignore the L-feeders after 2 hours while increasingly looked into the O-feeders.
from “Frustration of goal-directed behaviour in swine”, N.Lewis in Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 64, Issue 1, p 19-29
Posted 9.02.10 | Add a comment
Tags: animals, bibliography, fustration, science, studies
The idea of error-friendliness takes in the ideas of production of errors, tolerance of errors, and the «friendly» cooperation between these two aspects for the exploration of new opportunities.
- Christine von Weizsäcker
So this is brilliant. The notion that a system needs errors in order to evolve. It’s a balance between the amount of errors, and the power of a system to deal with these errors that allows that system to be flexible in exploring other options, and thus makes that system better set to evolve. Sort of brings in my original notion of resilience – the ability to adjust to severe change – in relation to error. It very much backs up my thesis hypothesis that experiencing errors can help teach a person to become more flexible and resilient.
I don’t want to get too broad, as my goal now is to narrow down, but this does bring up the topic of evolution and the role that error plays in the process. There’s a great case from the New Scientist on the relevance of biological error in evolution. A genetic mutation protected the Fore, a cannibalistic tribe from Papa New Guinea, against kuru – a brain disease passed on by eating human brains.
Making me want to get the word zombie somewhere in my thesis title.
Posted 6.02.10 | Add a comment
Tags: biological error, error-friendliness, evolution, new scientist, resilience
So having some good debates at the moment around my thesis – seems like my prototypes are turning up the heat on the topic of what is an error?.
Actually this a very good question and something I need to define. So far these mini-projects have been ways to investigate different definitions of error. So what have I defined as error?
- The unexpected.
- Wandering off track.
- Misbehaving.
- Wrong and Right.
There’s a big focus on play in my thesis, so I wanted to create playful interventions that explored these definitions and place them in the urban environment to test how people respond. Each prototype could not evaluate if the error could change a persons behaviour over time, as they were a one-off thing. I guess the projects more asked ‘is this an error?‘. I now need to narrow down my definition of error in order to answer my overarching thesis question: Can an experience of error excite positive change and learning? Can an experience of error favour fustration and provoke play?
So to redefine – for something to be an error it must:
- be unintentional.
- break a defined code.
The experience of error in these projects has been on two levels
- The errors I, the designer, experience in my process, design and hypothesis.
- The experience that an error has occurred for others.
Somethings missing! A third, vital level – The experience by someone else that they have committed an error.
This is the most difficult to design. For I can only design the conditions for an error to occur, and not force an error, for then it is intentional and thus not an error. Or alternatively I can find an error that people already commit, and see how I can use that error in a playful way to design with the error rather than against it. (The latter I favour as an approach.)
Then of course I need to test this experience over time to see if it changes the behaviour of the person and/or brings about a learning experience. Maybe I’ll need various tests – a control experience, then various other experiences where the variables are slightly changed to see which one is more effective.
Posted 6.02.10 | Add a comment
Tags: anaylsis, definition, error
According to AlphaGalileo, the background lighting provided in a room has an influence on how we taste wine. This is the result of a survey conducted by researchers at the Institute of Psychology at Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany. It was found that the same wine was rated higher when exposed to red or blue ambient light rather than green or white light.
The survey showed, among other things, that the test wine was perceived as being nearly 1.5 times sweeter in red light than in white or green light. Its fruitiness was also most highly rated in red light. Riesling combined with green light was not appreciated. Accordingly, one conclusion of the study is that the color of ambient lighting can influence how wine tastes, even when there is no direct effect on the color of the drink.
This opens up an interesting possibility; you could perhaps make use of only one type of wine to support the different courses of a dinner. Just modify the lighting conditions. The wine steward, or sommelier, will turn into ‘Light DJ’.
via The Examiner
Posted 29.01.10 | Add a comment
